Vegetable farming renews Kanchhi Maya’s life

Kanchi Maya Tamang weeds out her vegetable farm.

Kathmandu, 1 August 2018 - Kanchhi Maya Tamang, in her mid-forties, is a resident in Bagmati Rural Municipality-3 Bhattedanda, Bulakichaur of Lalitpur district. She comes from a very poor family. Bulakichaur is located 30 Kilometers away from Lalitpur district headquarters. The physical distance is elusive as the village is remote.

The people of this village are so poor that all 25 households are wage labor who earn their income and sustain their families doing hard work. The 2015 Nepal Earthquake completely destroyed their houses, badly affected their livelihood sources and shattered their dreams.

Kanchhi Maya, one of the earthquake-affected people, had already been facing problems to feed her six-member family. The earthquake exasperated her woes as she had no access to financial services and resources.

Based on selection criteria, she was nominated as a participant in a 3-day training in seasonal vegetable farming and provided start up support by Integrated Community Development Organization (ICDO), an implementing partner organization of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Nepal.

She actively participated in the training and enhanced her technical capacity to do commercial vegetable farming. The business development plan prepared in course of the training motivated her for commercial farming.

Following the training, ICDO provided her input support worth Rs 10,000 as start-up support for promoting on-farm activity. After getting the support, she cultivated seasonal vegetables (cauliflower, coriander, radish, broad leaf mustard, etc.) in her small piece of farm. She also became a shareholder of Satkanya Multiple Cooperative Society Ltd, Bhattedanda, in her village.

She also got training in nursery management, composting, home garden, pest management as well as market management. Being equipped with necessary skills and receiving input support, she devoted herself to commercial vegetable farming.  

Within a span of three years, she has been able to earn Rs 113,094. It is the income of four months of her commercial farming. With this income, she has been able to reconstruct her house fully damaged by the earthquake. Not only that she has also been able to meet food sufficiency and educate her four children.

Now, her skill in commercial vegetable farming and the steady income has boosted her confidence and she feels that she has come out of poverty. She has planned to continue and expand commercial vegetable farming to further improve her livelihood.

She said, “It was very difficult for me to sustain my family and was much distressed after the earthquake. Now I am very happy with this success. I would like to thank ICDO and LWF Nepal for their continuous support and guidance and bringing positive changes in my life.”